Aqua Clarahttp://aquaclara.org
Clean water for the world.Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:39:22 +0000en-US
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.3First of Several Filters Installed in Puerto Rican Homeshttp://aquaclara.org/2019/04/first-of-several-filters-installed-in-puerto-rican-homes/
Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:39:22 +0000http://aquaclara.org/?p=5357In January and April this year, ACI has traveled to Puerto Rico to perform initial filter-builds and trainings of the […]

]]>This past November Aqua Clara International traveled to Moca, Domincan Republic to build ten Facility Filters in public schools, one in a nursing home and perform a training session of building a 2-Bucket Household Filter in which 464 will be placed in over 100 schools. This project was organized by 2 de Mayo Rotary Club of Moca and Frankenmuth and Owosso Rotary Clubs of Michigan.

The trip consisted of an Aqua Clara technician, Jay VandenBrink, a Michigan Rotary Club member, Randy Ettema and his translator Julia Behmlander, traveling to Moca to meet with members of the Rotary Clubs there.

The first day consisted of traveling to each school with a government education official to sign the correct documents and plan. In all, it took ten days for the first nine of the filters to be built. Two schools had to have their water tested due to not being connected to contaminated city water, but those filters were installed by locally trained Rotary members.

]]>Aqua Clara Kenya Certified as a B Corporationhttp://aquaclara.org/2018/10/aqua-clara-kenya-certified-as-a-b-corporation/
Fri, 26 Oct 2018 17:15:00 +0000http://aquaclara.org/?p=5273Aqua Clara Kenya (ACK) is now one of only 18 companies certified as B Corporations in East Africa. Below are […]

]]>Aqua Clara Kenya (ACK) is now one of only 18 companies certified as B Corporations in East Africa. Below are photos of the induction ceremony with Peter Kihuria, COO of ACK, John Nyagwencha, CEO of ACK, and Tom Morton of Climate Care who ACK works tightly with in Nairobi. Climate Care is a B Corp registered in the UK. This is is an incredible achievement and we at Aqua Clara look forward to the opportunities it will bring our Kenyan team.

]]>Click here to open Ford Fund’s summary of our work in Northern, Mexico earlier this year! ACI supplied 65 Household Filters for families and one Facility Filter for a community center. All the filters were supplied with our heavy metal remediation technology.

]]>Being contracted by Agape Community Transformation this July, Aqua Clara Kenya (ACK) traveled to Uganda to bring clean water to Muko High School. Muko High School is located in Rubanda District, West of Uganda and is three km from Lake Bunyonyi, Africa’s second deepest lake. The area has good rainfall most of the year, except for a three month dry season that lasts from June to September. The school has a population of 277 students and 29 staff, with the headmaster projecting to double in the coming 3-4 years. Realizing rain water harvesting (RWH) would be the best method to supply clean water to the students, ACK constructed such a long with a Aqua Clara Facility Filter.

The rain water is stored in two 10,000 liter tanks on the ground and pumped by solar to an elevated 5,000 litre reservoir. From the water reservoir, it flows down by gravity to a 1,000 liter sand pre-filter which reduces turbidity and removes larger pollutants such as worms before finally dropping down to the filter house where a membrane filter takes out all bacteria and parasites.

The school with its rain harvest tanksThe piping system to the rain harvest collection tanksACK staff cleaning graven for the pre-filter of the systemPreparing the tanks for the systemThe solar panels used to power the pump used for the collected rain water to be forced through the filtration system

]]>This April 2018, an ACI team composing of Dr. Harry Knopke and Jay VandenBrink met with their in-country Director of AquaNic, Mario Benavides, along with three Grand Rapids Rotarians, and one of their families. The team had a successful filter-build of 100, ACI Bio-Sand Filters (BSFs) in Northern Nicaragua. The name of a the town was Cañalipe and it is located in the hottest and one of the poorest states of Nicaragua, Chinandega.

It is sad for ACI to report that right after this trip, Nicaragua became unrestful with protests against their government and lives were lost. There continues to be tension in Nicaragua. Please continue to keep their people in your prayers.

Mario Benevides organizes the community leaders of Cañalipe before the filter-buildLuis Veccino, a Grand Rapids Rotarian, teaches the new BSF owners on filter-maintinenceCañalipe children with their new BSFThe team at Rancho los Alpes, Leon, Nicaragua where the filter materials were prepared

Bob McDonald, founder of Aqua Clara, passed away the afternoon of April 19 with his family present in the Inn of Freedom Village after an extended and oftentimes very painful illness. He was calm and peaceful. We are grateful that he is now free from pain, and that he experiences the peace that his Faith in God has promised him.

Bob was a senior executive at Dow Chemical when he retired. During his tenure with the company he headed marketing and manufacturing for the company’s Middle East-Africa operations. It was on his first trip to Africa that he saw a woman by the side of the road scooping brown, obviously contaminated water from a muddy rut into a cooking container. That image stayed with him through his retirement and continued to provide an impetus for what became myriad technological developments and programmatic initiatives that now serve people in over 30 countries.

All of his colleagues appreciate the tireless and total dedication Bob gave to Aqua Clara International in the last eleven years. His work was guided by Jesus’ words that “as he gave drink to the least of these, my Brethren, he gave it unto Me.” Bob used his vast base of knowledge, experience, and faith to lead this last endeavor in his life.

]]>This February, ACI’s team member, Dale Spencer, went back down to Yucatan, Mexico with Fifth Reformed Church of Grand Rapids. This has been a regular occurrence for around a half a decade now. This time, the team installed two ACI Facility Filters and 20 ACI 2-Bucket Household Filters ( 2B HHFs). It was a successful trip of installations and supervising the already made filters from years past. A photo below shows the areas that have already received such filters a long with the new filter-installations.
Households receiving their ACI 2-Bucket Household Filter (2B HHFs)Tixhualactun, Yucatan Facility FilterKuxeb, Yucatan Facility Filter

]]>Continued Filter Installations and Research in the Sierra Gorda Region of Mexicohttp://aquaclara.org/2017/05/continued-filter-installations-and-research-in-the-sierra-gorda-region-of-mexico/
Fri, 12 May 2017 14:09:51 +0000http://aquaclara.org/?p=3264ACI and the University Autonomous of Querétaro (UAQ) have been working together for the past years to bring clean, arsenic-free […]

ACI and the University Autonomous of Querétaro (UAQ) have been working together for the past years to bring clean, arsenic-free water to the mountainous regions just outside the city of Querétaro de Santiago, Queretaro, Mexico. We partnered with the engineering department of the University on this project and worked with engineering students learning the technology and the implementation techniques of ACI.

The beginning of this trip consisted of ACI President, Dr. Harry Knopke and Program Manager of Latin America, Jay VandenBrink, meeting in San Francisco de Rincon, Guanajuato, Mexico with a team of engineers trying to solve their arsenic and fluoride crisis as levels have been increasing in the wells around the area. The meeting was held at a branch of the Technology Institute of Mexico, which has a new campus in the area. After this initial meeting, ACI and UAQ traveled to the Sierra Gordas mountainous region of the state of Queretaro, Mexico to meet with Jose Morado, the Sanitation Manager of the area, to construct two more ACI Arsenic Facility Filter with in a school in Sauz de Guadalupe, Querétaro and in a small highly elevated village San Isidro, Querétaro, Mexico. Other than a broken-down truck carrying our supplies through the many mountainous curves, it was a very successful trip. We have been privileged to be able to share our technology with UAQ and see them turn it into their own sustainable method of supplying potable arsenic-free water to the hard to reach areas of Mexico that have been dealing with such.

ACI, UAQ, and Engineers meet at the Mexican Technical Institute campus in San Francisco de Rincon, Guanajuato, MexicoLas Sierras Gordas, Querétaro, MexicoUAQ Engineers having to fit five students in one truck (three in back) due to the breakdown of the second truck.A school in Sauz de Guadalupe, Queretaro, Mexico which was one of two areas where ACI Arsenic Facility Filters were installed.Jose Manual, Zaira Valverde, and Gustavo Olivan of UAQ with s local school administrator in Sauz de Guadalupe, Queretaro, Mexico.UAQ Engineering students, Luis Ricardo Sarabia Sanchez and Alejandro Felix Rubio learned how to install ACI technology high-up in the Sierras Gordas mountain range in west Querétaro state.Jay VandenBrink of ACI and the lead Sanitation Manager of the area, Jose Morado, mount the frame of an ACI Facility Filter on the wall of the just built water-kiosk supplying arsenic free water to 260 villager of San Isidro, Querétaro, Mexico.Jose Morado teaches local community leaders of San Isidro, Queretaro, Mexico on ACI Facility Filter maintenance.Part of ACI's promise is to show the locals that our filters do indeed work. We usually do this by having the first sips and showing them our post-installation arsenic tests which show 0-1 ppb arsenic levels post-filtration.The way back brought the team close to one of the Sierra Gordas beautiful mountainous sites, the Chuveje waterfall.